Obituary: Viscount Tonypandy | The Independent Obituary: Viscount Tonypandy Monday 22 September 1997 23:02 BST Click to follow The Independent Online Thomas George Thomas, politician: born 29 January 1909; MP (Labour) for Cardiff Central 1945-50, Cardiff West 1950-83; PPS to Minister of Aviation 1951; member, Chairman's Panel, House of Commons 1951-64; Joint Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office 1964-66; Minister of State, Welsh Office 1966-67; Minister of State, Commonwealth Office 1967-68; Secretary of State for Wales 1968-70; PC 1968; deputy Speaker and Chairman of Ways and Means, House of Commons 1964-76; Speaker of the House of Commons 1976-83; created 1983 Viscount Tonypandy; chairman, Bank of Wales 1985-91; died Cardiff 22

 September 1997.

George Thomas was the first Speaker of the House of Commons to be known by the whole nation; known, and loved too. In 1978, two years after his appointment, the BBC began broadcasting Today in Parliament and its opening call ``Order! Order!'', declaimed in Thomas's rolling Rhondda accent, became a national catchphrase. The broadcast provided most people with their first experience of how Parliament is conducted and how Mr Speaker could exert his authority over rebellious MPs by good-humoured and witty intervention. Within a week, a star was born. Speaker Thomas had become a national institution. And it was, of course, his gratifying apotheosis, after what he had wrongly felt to be a chequered political career. George Thomas had been a lively, eloquent, busy MP in the 1945 parliament, a member of the committee chairmen's panel and first chairman of the Welsh Grand Committee. But, unlike his fellow member for Cardiff, James Callaghan, he was not offered even junior office. Nineteen years passed before he was rewarded and even then Harold Wilson could not fulfil his intention to make him Chairman of Ways and Means and deputy Speaker.

The Labour majority was only five and a deputy Speaker renounces his party vote, a loss the Government could not afford. Thomas was consoled first with a junior post at the Home Office and then as Minister of State at the Welsh Office. Later, as Minister of State at the Commonwealth Office, he enjoyed travelling the world and proved to be rather good at sorting out difficult African leaders whose temperament was more akin to that of the warm, voluble Welshman than to that of the average reserved Englishman. It was however in the United States, in Georgia, that a preacher said it all: ``His face is white but his heart is as black as ours.'' At last, in 1968, he entered the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Wales. It was a difficult time for the Welsh Office. Welsh nationalism was growing, particularly linguistic nationalism, and there was a tiny fringe threatening violence. Thomas, like many of his compatriots, had no enthusiasm for the nationalist cause. Moreover he had an English mother, and so had not nearly enough of the Welsh language, some people felt, for a man chosen to be the Welsh Secretary of State. The tension grew as the investiture of the Prince of Wales drew closer.

Thomas's life was constantly threatened. His bungalow was plastered with Welsh-language posters and leaflets and he was attacked in religious newspapers and even from the pulpit. The Prince of Wales was due to spend a preparatory term at Aberystwyth and the academics feared that it would be dangerous. The Secretary of State had a heavy responsibility but the police were confident enough and the Special Branch did all that was necessary around Caernarvon Castle for the ceremony itself. When Labour was re- elected in 1974, George Thomas was 65. He fully expected to return to the Welsh Office, and to the end of his days he resented the fact that Wilson and Callaghan had failed to warn him that the job was to go to a younger man, and one favoured by the Welsh speakers. The post selected for Thomas was again the Chairmanship of Ways and Means and deputy Speaker. Seeing his disappointment Wilson reminded him that Selwyn Lloyd must surely soon retire, although of course the Speakership cannot be the gift of the Prime Minister.

Mistrusted as he was by the nationalists, George Thomas was the archetypal middle-of-the-road Welsh MP of his generation, formed by the fortifying curriculum of the valley, the pit, the chapel, the temperance movement, the Co-op, the trade union and the Labour Party. He had an expansive personality, a quick mind and all the evangelical skills. Such gifts are not exactly rare in Wales but Thomas had them in profusion; above all, he had the ability to find the words, expressed in richly dramatic cadences, that would move any audience. As a young man Thomas had delivered a free prayer in the presence of a collier who had perfected his English by learning off the entire Book of Psalms. ``You should ask yourself tonight whether God wants you to be a preacher,'' he said. Thomas got an affirmative answer and became a most active Methodist lay preacher, more eloquent even in the pulpit than on the political platform. I have remembered for years a sermon I heard him preach at the service held before the Labour Party Conference. His theme was the need to treat old people with love and respect as well as justice and he spoke sadly of the contempt he had seen them receive in a certain institution.

The chapel was in his blood. His mother was the daughter of a founder of the English Methodist Church in Tonypandy. Mam Thomas, as she became known, was a heroic woman. At 19, she married a Welsh-speaking miner of the same age and before they reached 30 they had two daughters and three sons. The father took to the bottle, was violent in his cups, and to everyone's relief disappeared into the Army in 1914. Afterwards he went off and acquired another family. The first family survived intact in a squalid basement as Mrs Thomas took in washing and sewed long into the night. The daughters went into service at 13 and George's elder brother down the pit at the same age. It was this that made it possible for George to go to secondary school and then to take a teacher training course at Southampton. He remained a teacher until he was 36. Medically graded as ``C'', he was a part-time special policeman during the Second World War. This left him time to serve as a member of the national executive of the National Union of Teachers and become a runner-up for the presidency.

When he was 16 his mother married again, and happily this time, to a winder at the pit and when he died George bought a bungalow in Cardiff and lived there with her. He took her with him on many engagements and Mam Thomas became the best-known mother in Wales. She was not a clinging type. She had been a fluent public speaker and had chaired her ward Labour Party and local co-operative women's guild. She lived to be over 90 and, when she died two months before her other remaining son, George underwent a crisis of religious faith. It took him over a year to recover. His personality was a triumph over early adversity; yet not quite a complete triumph. Now and then there would emerge a hint of malice, a touch of envy or vanity, only shocking because they came from such an affable man. On the day they re-opened the school at Aberfan, Thomas and I were riding in the last car of the motorcade. At each stop, the housewives surged around our car and cheered him. ``I do wish the Prime Minister could see what they think of me!'' Thomas said.

In his autobiography, Mr Speaker (1985), Thomas dismayed some old friends by writing with lack of charity about such favourite sons of the party as Foot, Callaghan and Cledwyn Hughes. Why did he do it? He would later ask himself that question and say, ``I wish I'd never written that old book.'' Was he influenced by the new candour of Crossman's diary? Was he persuaded by some editor to spice up his memoirs? The book did great damage to a man who had gone through life seeking love and soaking up adoration. It was, however, a book of some historical importance. It revealed the attempts of backbenchers and party leaders to influence the Speaker. It was, it is important to remember, the anguished parliament of 1978 in which he first served as Speaker. He was surprised to receive offensive letters from backbenchers complaining of not being called. He got up in the House, revealed these pressures and warned MPs that such conduct was counter-productive. Another ploy of the bully boys, he said, was to create a scene if they had not been called after standing up two or three times, hoping that the Speaker would call them next time to avoid a repeat performance.

After John Golding had devised the technique of putting down an open question to the Prime Minister which permitted a supplementary question to be asked on any subject, other MPs tried to apply it to other ministers. Speaker Thomas would not allow it, believing - rightly - that it would completely alter the nature of Question Time. But the Speaker had to face a greater strain. Key people from Government and Opposition would come to sound out what his rulings would be on certain issues; sometimes they would say that a poor view would be taken if he ruled in a particular way. His response was to threaten resignation and to promise that he would explain from the back benches his reasons for doing so. An answer would then be given that nobody wanted to push him around. Some MPs who thought it right for the Speaker to reveal what goes on in general terms could not forgive him for mentioning names and quoting private conversations. The controversy is covered amply in Michael Foot's book Loyalists and Loners (1986). On reading an extract from the memoirs, Foot wrote to Thomas to say that publication of confidential conversations was a breach of trust and could only do injury to Parliament.

Thomas replied, saying that his whole purpose in writing the book was because, like Foot, he was a believer in open government; in revealing the pressures the intention was to make things easier for his successors in the chair. The subject was aired in the Times and Foot agreed that the book could not be compared with the Crossman diaries because there was a difference between what a Cabinet minister engaged in party controversies may reveal and Mr Speaker, who is pledged to impartiality and independence. Yet Foot says that, although the book was ``grotesquely misleading'', Thomas was a very good Speaker. He had to deal with a House more narrowly poised between the parties than any of recent times. ``Yet he kept his head from the start.'' The greatest hullabaloo came on the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Bill. When after a long and bitter procedure the Government won by one vote, there was a suspicion that somebody had broken a pair. The Welsh began to sing the "Red Flag" and Michael Heseltine seized the mace. Thomas suspended the House for 20 minutes and on the resumption suspended it again until the following morning. Thus the storm was stilled. In spite of these difficulties, the Speaker's popularity grew.

He adored the ceremonial and people who were invited to the Speaker's House found the experience a delight. He was not just the host but also the animator of the party. He entertained the most eminent in the land and also many humble people from Wales, for whom it was the treat of a lifetime. The Conservatives kept him as Speaker until 1983. Then he became Viscount Tonypandy, with a hereditary title. This was not appreciated in Wales - although, since he had no heir, it did not matter very much. His coat of arms depicts an open Bible and a miner's lamp flanked by daffodils and the leek. The motto is old Welsh, Bid Ben Bid Bont, ``Who would lead, let him be a bridge'', from the Mabinogion. George Thomas took his place, as a former Speaker should, on the cross- benches of the House of Lords. He suffered from cancer of the throat which then broke out elsewhere. After he collapsed at a party at Guildhall to celebrate his 80th birthday, we thought it would be the end.

But a few days later, it became known that he was in a private nursing home in Wales, receiving the Prince and Princess and fulfilling one or two public engagements. - John Beavan George Thomas enjoyed an astonishing Indian summer in public life, living and making the cheerful best of it, as he put it, on "borrowed" time, writes Tam Dalyell. He professed himself vastly amused that he had been granted these extra years, and deduced that the extension bestowed on him was proof that his Methodist Almighty had a wicked sense of humour. How he would have chuckled benevolently, had he known that his obituarist John Beavan had predeceased him by three years. As Speaker, Thomas was my least favourite of those under whom I have sat - Sir Harry Hylton-Foster, Dr Horace King, Lord Selwyn Lloyd, Lord Weatherill and Madam Speaker Betty Boothroyd. He was capricious and concerned to ingratiate himself to the Prime Minister. He abused the position of Speaker to suppress dissenting opinion on the Falklands War as he judged what was good for Britain; and his judgement coincided with that of Margaret Thatcher.

(Some of us could not quite get it out of our minds that Thomas himself had been the Minister of State in the Commonwealth Office when relations with Argentina could have been resolved and weren't.) No memoirs in recent years have generated such hurt and then incandescent anger among former friends, particularly MPs sitting for Welsh seats and Welsh Labour activists, as those of Mr Speaker Sir, the memoirs of Viscount Tonypandy. They said that they thought George had been a friend and "then we discovered what he thought of us!" Nor did his endorsement of Sir James Goldsmith's political forays on the European issue endear him to many of his erstwhile colleagues. Though, in his last years, his British nationalism which had always been there came out uninhibited. The last time I chatted to Tonypandy - he was a tremendous gossip - was outside St Margaret's, Westminster, following the memorial service for Wing Commander Grant Ferris, his long-serving deputy, in July. Tonypandy raised the subject of devolution and expostulated - he always used his hands - that he was quite appalled.

He hissed to Cardinal Basil Hume and me (the famous familiar voice of Mr Speaker had long gone): "I love that place" - he pointed to the Commons - "and I've given pounds 100 to the `Vote No' campaign." At that moment, the government car which he was rightly given whenever he ventured out drew up. As he clambered into it, Tonypandy's last words to me were "Devolution - abomination, I call it." As a funeral eulogy speaker Tonypandy was much in demand and superb. Those who were there speak of his moving tribute to Wilson in the Scilly Isles speaking of how he burnt himself out in the service of his fellow countrymen. Tonypandy in his last decade did the same. John Beavan (Lord Ardwick) died 18 August 1994. More about: Selwyn Lloyd : definition of Selwyn Lloyd and synonyms of Selwyn Lloyd (English) 7 External links Background and early careers Lloyd was educated at Fettes College and Magdalene College, Cambridge , where he was President of the Cambridge Union and the Cambridge University Liberal Club .

[1] He was a Liberal Parliamentary candidate at Macclesfield in the 1929 general election , coming third. Local government service He served as a councillor on Hoylake Urban District Council 1932–40. World War Two service During the Second World War he reached the rank of brigadier and was Deputy Chief of Staff of the British Second Army . Election to Parliament He was elected to the House of Commons to represent Wirral in the 1945 general election . Originally a Liberal , he became a member of the "Young Turks" faction of the Conservative Party. Ministerial offices Minister of State for Foreign Affairs When the Conservatives returned to power under Churchill in 1951, Lloyd served under Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs from 1951 to 1954. Minister of Supply and Minister of Defence He then served as Minister of Supply (1954–1955). He was subsequently Minister of Defence (1955). Foreign Secretary He became Foreign Secretary in 1955. His tenure saw the Suez Crisis , which led to the fall of the Eden government.

While Foreign Secretary he was noted for not being on particularly good terms with his American counterpart, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles . He continued to serve as Foreign Secretary under Harold Macmillan until 1960. Chancellor of the Exchequer In 1960 he became Chancellor of the Exchequer (1960–1962). Unable to cope with Britain's economic problems in the early 1960s, and a focus of public unpopularity for the "Pay Pause" of the early 1960s, he was sacked from the government during the " Night of the Long Knives " reshuffle, and returned to the backbenches. He was replaced by Reginald Maudling , then seen as a potential future leader of the Conservative Party, and whose remit was to reflate the economy going into the next General Election due by the end of 1964. Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons He was called back to the government in 1963 by Alec Douglas-Home , who made him Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons until the Conservative defeat in the general election of 1964.

Speaker of the House of Commons Selwyn Lloyd (centre) with Moshe Sharett (left) and David Ben-Gurion (right), 1955 In 1971, after the Conservatives had returned to power, Lloyd became Speaker . In a break with convention, both the Labour and Liberal Parties contested his seat in both the February 1974 and October 1974 general elections, but he retained it and continued to hold the position of speaker until 1976. Peerage In 1976 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Selwyn-Lloyd, of Wirral in the County of Merseyside. Death and legacy He died two years later. A biography of Selwyn-Lloyd by D. R. Thorpe was published in 1989. References Sir Noel Short - Telegraph Gurkha Obituaries Sir Noel Short Sir Noel Short, who has died aged 85, was Secretary to three Speakers of the House of Commons in the 1970s and early 1980s; earlier, as a Gurkha officer, he had won an MC fighting the Japanese in the jungles of Burma.

12:00AM BST 12 Jul 2001 Short joined the House in 1970 from the Home Office, where he had been a Principal in the Police Department since retiring from the Army in the rank of brigadier six years before. In the Commons, he worked first for Horace King, then for Selwyn Lloyd and finally for George Thomas. His duties were wide and varied, ranging from organising translation services for the Speaker when he met foreign visitors, to helping him memorise the names of new MPs after a general election. Short kept an album with photographs of these close at hand in the chamber so that Speaker could familiarise himself with their faces during any lull in proceedings. Should his recall fail him, Short was always ready with a prompt. He had spent much of his 28 years in the Army in the Far East and spoke four languages fluently. He accompanied the Speakers on visits abroad, where his natural air of authority occasionally caused confusion among the locals as to who was the senior dignitary. On one such occasion in Tokyo, having studiously ignored well-meant but frustratingly persistent questions as to whether he had previously met any Japanese, his diplomacy temporarily deserted him.

"I got to know them quite well in 1945," came his testy response. His hosts' attention quickly returned to Mr Speaker. Noel Edward Vivian Short was born at Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, on January 19 1916. His father and grandfather were senior figures in the Indian Police, and he spent part of his childhood in India. He was educated at Radley and then at Sandhurst, from where he was commissioned into the Indian Army in 1936. His first posting was to the North West Frontier with the South Wales Border Regiment. A year later he joined the 6th Gurkha Rifles, with whom he served for the rest of his military career, and to whom he always maintained a close attachment. During the Second World War, he saw active service in New Guinea, Assam and Burma. By March 1945 he was at Tongyl, Burma, where he won the Military Cross for his part in an action which, for him, was given an edge by his desire to avenge enemy acts of particular savagery against local inhabitants which he had witnessed.

Short, then a major, was in command of a battalion of the 6th Gurkha Rifles ordered to attack a Japanese force entrenched in bunkers concealed in the jungle and in houses in a large village. Heavy machine-gun fire and snipers hidden in the tree tops held up the Gurkhas, and when tanks arrived to support they were also held up by accurate fire from a 75 mm gun and mortars. The Gurkhas' casualties mounted steadily, but Short moved from place to place, encouraging the men and co-ordinating the further combined infantry and tank moves required. Largely due to his determination and indifference to danger, the attack was once more resumed and took all its objectives. At Maymyo nine days later, Short boldly advanced his battalion very rapidly over difficult country, surprising the enemy and overcoming all attempts by them to make a stand. "Major Short's personal courage, dash and leadership," stated the citation for his MC, "have been a great inspiration to his men." From 1950 to 1951, Short served in Malaya during the Emergency, and in the latter year was appointed MBE.

He was promoted to command 63 Gurkha Infantry Brigade in 1960, and two years later 51 Infantry Brigade, based at Tidworth. In 1964, however, with his three children growing up, he left the Army for the greater stability of life in the Civil Service. He became Colonel of the 6th Queen Elizabeth's Own Gurkha Rifles in 1978, and took a close interest in the welfare of the officers and men thereafter. Away from his desk, he particularly enjoyed improving his skills as a photographer. Noel Short was knighted in 1977, five years before he retired from working for the Speaker. A modest man, who commanded respect but did not stand on ceremony, he disapproved of any tendency to dwell on Britain's past military glories. He regarded the principles for which he had fought as more important than the fighting itself. He attributed his knighthood to being a reward for "40 years of undetected delinquency". He married first, in 1949, Diana Morison. She died in 1951, and he married secondly, in 1957, Karin Anders.

She survives him, together with his son of the first marriage and a son and a daughter of the second. First published July 12 2001 Roy Hattersley: It's a question of rules | Politics | The Guardian It's a question of rules The Tory leader shouldn't be allowed to turn prime minister's questions into a succession of speeches Monday 12 December 2005 18.49 EST First published on Monday 12 December 2005 18.49 EST Share on Messenger Close No serious commentator really believes that David Cameron's prospects of becoming prime minister will be decided "during his first hundred days" as Tory leader. That idea would have won the prize for the silliest reaction to his election as Tory leader had not the BBC's This Week programme asked Ulrika Jonsson - well known for her shrewd assessment of the male character - to describe his appeal to what she called "readers of my News of the World column". However, the esteem in which he is held by his own backbenchers will be crucially affected by his early performances at prime minister's questions.

On the evidence of last Wednesday, he proposes to reduce the odds of ability and experience - which are clearly stacked against him - by bending the rules. We can only hope that Mr Speaker Martin - having indulged him on his first outing - will not, in future, let him get away with it. None of the Speakers under whom I sat in the House of Commons - Sir Harry Hylton-Foster, Dr Horace King, Mr Selwyn Lloyd, Mr George Thomas, Mr Bernard Weatherill or Ms Betty Boothroyd, would have tolerated Cameron's behaviour. On the occasions when I deputised for Neil Kinnock at what was then a twice-weekly joust, I spent the mornings suppressing my terror not at the thought of what Mrs Thatcher would reply to my questions but at the prospect of Speaker Weatherill stopping me, after half a dozen words, because he suspected that my opening sentence would not end with a question mark. Last Wednesday, David Cameron made declarations of personal policy and then invited the prime minister to comment on them. If Neil Kinnock had been allowed such latitude, he would have enjoyed a triumph on every Tuesday and Thursday that parliament met.

Unfortunately for him, the Speaker of his day took the old-fashioned view that prime minister's questions is meant for questions. If Michael Martin is afforded a footnote in the textbooks of parliamentary procedure, it will be because of his groundbreaking decision - begun when Michael Howard led the Tories - to turn prime minister's questions into an exchange of rival opinions. A statistical appendix will contain an analysis of Cameron's first performance. It began with a "question" which was made up of four sentences (50 words) which turned out to be statements and one sentence (30 words) which, more or less, asked for information. The abuse became more flagrant as the afternoon wore on. Cameron's last effort consisted of a four-sentence assertion (83 words) and a one-sentence (21 words) invitation to agree with a long quotation which he had just read out. While all this was going on, government backbenchers were - as far as I could make out from television - mouthing every sort of interruption except those which were not so much legitimate as necessary for the preservation of House of Commons rules. Nobody cried "Order!" - although Cameron was clearly out of it. Nor did anyone shout "Question!", to remind him of what he should be doing.

It may be that Cameron does not believe that people of his sort have to obey the rules which apply to the proletariat. But the House of Commons lives by the principal that all of its members are constrained by the same standing orders. And it is Mr Speaker's duty to make sure that the rule is respected. I am a supporter, admirer and (when necessary) defender of Michael Martin. But I will find it difficult to explain why he let the leader of the opposition dribble on and then - next question - cut off a Labour backbencher in mid-sentence. That is not the sort of criticism that MPs can (or should) voice in public. But it seems to me that Geoffrey Hoon (the leader of the house) and Hilary Armstrong (the government chief whip) should make their discreet way to the Speaker's office and explain, in the politest possible terms, that they would be grateful if, in future, prime minister's questions could be used for asking questions. It is not an unreasonable request.

And it is a suggestion to which ever-loyal Labour backbenchers should gladly give their vocal support if, on future Wednesday mornings, the leader of the opposition behaves as if the established practices of the House of Commons do not apply to him. BBC - Newsnight: Michael Crick: Debunking some conventions about the Speaker Debunking some conventions about the Speaker Share this page Michael Crick | 13:20 UK time, Monday, 18 May 2009 There's a lot of rubbish talked about traditions and conventions when it comes to electing of a new Speaker of the House of Commons . First, it's said it's conventional to elect a Speaker mid-term, so that he or she is elected entirely by people who know him rather than brand new MPs, and that it would therefore be a breach of that rule if Michael Martin hangs on until the election and then retires . Second, it's said it's conventional for the Speakership to alternate between the two main parties, and that Michael Martin's election in 2000, as a second successive Labour Speaker, following Betty Boothroyd , was a breach of this rule.

But a quick look at the post-war Speakers shows these rules don't really exist: 1943-1951 Douglas Clifton Brown (Con) 1951-1959 William Morrison (Con) 1959-1965 Sir Harry Hylton-Foster (Con) 1965-1971 Horace King (Lab) NOT AS NICE AS ALL THAT » 17 Oct 1997 » The Spectator Archive NOT AS NICE AS ALL THAT Robert Rhodes James offers a somewhat revisionist view of the recently deceased Viscount Tonypandy FEW political careers have ended so satis- factorily, and unexpectedly, as that of George Thomas, Viscount Tonypandy. As Speaker of the House of Commons when radio broadcasting of its proceedings began, he became an instant national celebrity. Until then, although he had been an MP since 1945 and a Cabinet minister in the first Wilson government, and had, as Welsh secretary, masterminded the investi- ture of the Prince of Wales, he could hard- ly have been described as a major national political figure.

When Labour, rather to its own surprise, narrowly won the February 1974 election, Thomas assumed that he was destined for high office and arrived at Downing Street confident and cheerful. He emerged shat- tered and dejected; he was to be the Deputy Speaker and Chairman of Ways and Means. Although Selwyn Lloyd was expected to retire as Speaker within two years, there was no guarantee that he would be succeeded by his Deputy. The Commons have lost many of their privi- leges, but have tenaciously clung to the right to elect their own Speaker, as Mar- garet Thatcher discovered to her mortifi- cation in 1983. To be the government nominee is usually the kiss of death. But, by 1976, when Lloyd did retire, George Thomas had won the confidence of the opposition parties, if not the 'whole- hearted endorsement of his Labour col- leagues. He was not particularly trusted or liked by many of them, and they also had deeply unhappy memories of the first Labour Speaker, Horace King, who was 'Could you put together an assorted gift basket?' under the delusion that sherry is a non- alcoholic drink.

Lloyd was certainly not a teetotaller, particularly after his brutal dis- missal as chancellor of the exchequer by Macmillan, but as an old soldier he knew that it was important to be sober on parade. Thomas, a lifelong abstainer, would not pose that kind of problem. What worried Labour was that he had already shown clear signs not only of independence, but of leaning over backwards to favour the oppo- sition, and had begun his remarkable love affair with Margaret Thatcher. But he was elected, and began a memorable Speaker- ship that ended with a viscountcy and uni- versal praise, Mrs Thatcher describing him, not very originally, as 'a legend in his life- time'. My first encounter with George was in the early 1960s, when I was a clerk of the House of Commons and he was chairing his first standing committee. It was a fairly insignificant committee dealing with pri- vate members' bills, but George behaved as though he was the new headmaster of a turbulent school which needed to be taught a severe lesson.

His harshness was directed less at the members than at the hapless officials: he bawled out the policeman at the door for not closing it on time; he was nasty to the Hansard reporters; he treated me with con- temptuous disdain, as he did all officials; he complained vociferously about the inad- equacy of the advice he was receiving, and made threatening noises about the report he would be writing to the Speaker about the miserable quality of the officers of the House. Unsurprisingly, we deeply disliked him, regarding him as an arrogant, sanctimo- nious, deceitful and malicious bully. This was my first impression of him, and first impressions are difficult to eradicate. The mutual antipathy between him and the clerks was to survive during his Speaker- ship. When I became Member of Parliament for Cambridge in 1976, Thomas's attitude towards me was transformed.

I had sud- denly become important: he earnestly desired me to be his friend; he called me to speak and intervene in the House with almost embarrassing regularity; his mother, the legendary `Mam', having died, he felt free to share a glass of whisky with me; he was immensely flattering and kind to me and my wife, and referred to me in glowing terms when delivering a sermon to a packed congregation in Great St Mary's. But, despite all this, with my memories of how he had been, I viewed him through cautious eyes. I had, after all, a vote, and George was very keen on being re-elected Speaker. He had also become much enamoured of Mrs Thatcher, whom he perceived virtually certain to become the next prime minister. His long-standing vendetta against Jim Callaghan was unalloyed, and spewed forth later in his lamentable autobiography. George's Welsh charm concealed the fact that he was a good hater and nurtured his animosities. His attempts to wreck the career of one of the senior clerks were unsuccessful when he was confronted with a mini-mutiny, but they were certainly not out of character. Politically he changed mightily, from firebrand Left to establishment Right.

When Clement Attlee was made an earl and went to the Lords in 1956, George was explosive on the subject of how ridiculous a spectacle it was to see a former Labour Prune minister and leader 'dressed up in all that ermine'. But the later George glee- !oily accepted a viscountcy from his hero- the Mrs Thatcher, and delighted in 'dressing up in all that ermine' and hob- nobbing charmingly and successfully with royalty. Indeed, he was one of the greatest establis1nnent converts of his time, although in this progression — or regres- sion — he was by no means unique in the history of the Labour party, with its record of stern revolutionaries who became obeisant and even fawning courtiers. Much has been made of George's charm and wit as Speaker, and rightly so. He had an extraordinary ability to defuse an ugly situation and turn anger into laughter. On one occasion I vehemently objected to being described at Question Time as `a hYpocrite'. George responded, with mock solemnity, 'So do we all.' And that was that.

He was certainly a superb actor, with Style, impeccable timing and acute feeling for the mood of the audience worthy of the great performers. He played to the gallery blatantly and magnificently. The gallery adored him, but the players and stage hands commented upon the vanity, Impatience and self-importance that tend They used to be known as "Suits". Now I reckon they should all be called "Ties".' to go with that profession. On stage he was brilliant; but it could be very different off stage. When the arc-lights were switched off he left the act to his support- ing players, who had to undertake the gru- elling ordeal of chairing interminable debates that had no popular interest. When the lights went on again they were dismissed and George took the chair and centre stage again. It is not surprising that his hard-worked deputies did not regard him with unstinted admiration. He became almost slavishly deferential to those above him and indifferent to those below him. A once-fierce Labour left-winger, he became a passionate devo- tee of traditional institutions, particularly the monarchy and the House of Lords — the whole paraphernalia.

He had become infinitely more Conservative than I have ever been, and perhaps the last believer in the divine right of kings. No wonder they all loved him. But not everyone did. There were those who regarded George as a fraud and a charlatan, eager to bend the knee to any- one above his station and thinly contemp- tuous of anyone deemed to be below it. This was a harsh and unfair portrait, but there was some truth in it. George, rising so far from his humble origins, became something of a grandee. But there was much that was admirable. He was a true British patriot, a sincere Christian, a passionate believer in Parlia- ment, and he had a deep faith in the good- ness and decency of the British people. He stoutly resisted throat cancer for far longer than at one point had seemed possible, and this in itself was an inspiring example. I was not sure about his campaign for the Refer- endum party and Jimmy Goldsmith, but I was quite sure about his opposition to the Welsh Assembly, his last political venture. George Thomas was a complex and con- troversial man. Apparently open and sin- cere, he could also be devious and calculating.

Throughout his career he had his eye fixed firmly on the main chance. The result is that although many will sin- cerely mourn him, others will be more objective. The key fact is that when he thought his political career was over he recovered, seized his opportunity and rode to triumph. This was a remarkable achieve- ment. In spite of my affection and regard for George, I remain somewhat ambivalent about him; but I have always had a soft spot for great actors and am prepared to accept their human weaknesses. These he certainly had, but 'the gain hath the advan- tage, and the loss does not bear down the scale'. Sir Robert was a clerk of the House of Com- mons 1955-65, and Conservative MP for Cambridge 1976-92. Speakers of the British House of Commons Speakers of the British House of Commons Virginia House of Burgesses Top Surnames John Green (c.1382 - c.1434) John Greene, Esq., Lord Drayton1,2,3 M, #19680, d. 1433 Father Sir Henry Greene, Lord Drayton b.

c 1365 Mother Maud Mauduit b. c 1361 John Greene, Esq., Lord Drayton was born at of Drayton in L... history The Speaker of the House of Commons is the presiding officer of the House of Commons, the United Kingdom's lower chamber of Parliament. The Speaker presides over the House's debates, determining which members may speak. The Speaker is also responsible for maintaining order during debate, and may punish members who break the rules of the House. Unlike presiding officers of legislatures in many other countries, the Speaker remains strictly non-partisan, and renounces all affiliation with his or her former political party when taking office. The Speaker does not take part in debate nor vote (except to break ties, and even then, subject to conventions that maintain his or her non-partisan status). Aside from duties relating to presiding over the House, the Speaker also performs administrative and procedural functions, and remains a constituency Member of Parliament (MP). The Speaker has the right and obligation to reside in Speaker's House at the Palace of Westminster. History The office of Speaker is almost as old as Parliament itself.

The earliest year for which a presiding officer has been identified is 1258, when Peter de Montfort presided over the Parliament held in Oxford. Early presiding officers were known by the title parlour or prolocutor. The continuous history of the office of Speaker is held to date from 1376 when Sir Peter de la Mare spoke for the commons in the "Good Parliament" as they joined leading magnates in purging the chief ministers of the Crown and the most unpopular members of the king's household. Edward III was frail and in seclusion, his prestigious eldest son, Edward the Black Prince, terminally ill. It was left to the next son, a furious John of Gaunt, to fight back. He arrested De la Mare and disgraced other leading critics. In the next, "Bad Parliament", in 1377, a cowed Commons put forward Gaunt's steward, Thomas Hungerford, as their spokesman in retracting their predecessors' misdoings of the previous year.

Gaunt evidently wanted a 'mirror-image' as his form of counter-coup and this notion, born in crisis, of one 'speaker', who quickly also became 'chairman' and organiser of the Commons' business, was recognised as valuable and took immediate root after 1376-7. Throughout the medieval and early modern period, every speaker was an MP for a county, reflecting the implicit situation that such shire representatives were of greater standing in the house than the more numerous burgess MPs. Although evidence is almost non-existent, it has been surmised that any vote was by count of head, but by the same token perhaps the fact so very little is said about actual votes suggests that most decisions, at least of a general kind, were reached more through persuasion and the weight by status of the county MPs. In such a situation, the influence of the speaker should not be underestimated. Sir Thomas More was the first speaker to go on to become Lord Chancellor. Until the 17th century, members of the House of Commons often continued to view their Speaker (correctly) as an agent of the Crown.

As Parliament evolved, however, the Speaker's position grew into one that involved more duties to the House than to the Crown; such was definitely the case by the time of the English Civil War. This change is sometimes said to be reflected by an incident in 1642, when King Charles I entered the House in order to search for and arrest five members for high treason. When the King asked him if he knew of the location of these members, the Speaker, William Lenthall, famously replied: "May it please your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here." The development of Cabinet government under King William III in the late 17th century caused further change in the nature of the Speakership. Speakers were generally associated with the ministry, and often held other government offices. For example, Robert Harley served simultaneously as Speaker and as a Secretary of State between 1704 and 1705. The Speaker between 1728 and 1761, Arthur Onslow, reduced ties with the government, though the office did remain to a large degree political.

The Speakership evolved into its modern form—in which the holder is an impartial and apolitical officer who does not belong to any party—only during the middle of the 19th century. Over 150 individuals have served as Speaker of the House of Commons. Their names are inscribed in gold leaf around the upper walls of Room C of the House of Commons Library. The three most recent Speakers have been notable for a series of firsts. Betty Boothroyd, elected in 1992, was the first woman Speaker. Michael Martin, elected in 2000, was the first Roman Catholic Speaker since the Reformation. John Bercow, elected in 2009, is the first Jewish Speaker. By convention Speakers are normally addressed in Parliament as "Mr Speaker", and their deputies as "Mr Deputy Speaker". Betty Boothroyd was, at her request, addressed as "Madam Speaker". When Betty Harvie Anderson had served in the 1970s as a Deputy Speaker, on the other hand, she had been addressed as "Mr Deputy Speaker".

Question: Which office has been held by Horace King, Selwyn Lloyd and George Thomas?
Answer: SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS